IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4981.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Demand for Post-Patent Prescription Pharmaceuticals

Author

Listed:
  • Judith K. Hellerstein

Abstract

This paper examines why physicians continue to prescribe trade- name drugs when less expensive generic substitutes are available. I utilize a data set on physicians, their patients, and the multi-source drugs prescribed to study the prescription habits of physicians in prescribing generic and trade-name drugs. The results indicate that almost all physicians prescribe both types of drugs to their patients. There is, however, persistence in the prescription behavior of physicians, so that some physicians are more likely to prescribe trade-name drugs, while others more often prescribe generics. While much of this persistence cannot be explained by observable characteristics of the physician or the physician's patients, patients who are treated by physicians with large numbers of HMO or pre-paid patients are more likely to be prescribed generics, and there is wide regional variation in the propensity of physicians to prescribe generic drugs. The results are most consistent with an explanation of physicians' prescription behavior based on habit persistence.

Suggested Citation

  • Judith K. Hellerstein, 1994. "The Demand for Post-Patent Prescription Pharmaceuticals," NBER Working Papers 4981, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4981
    Note: EH PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4981.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin S. Feldstein, 1976. "Seven Principles of Social Insurance," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 6-11, November.
    2. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318, Elsevier.
    3. Ernst R. Berndt & Zvi Griliches & Joshua G. Rosett, 1990. "On the Accuracy of Producer Price Indexes for Pharmaceutical Preparations: An Audit Based on Detailed Firm-Specific Data," NBER Working Papers 3490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Butler, J S & Moffitt, Robert, 1982. "A Computationally Efficient Quadrature Procedure for the One-Factor Multinomial Probit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 761-764, May.
    5. Gary Chamberlain, 1980. "Analysis of Covariance with Qualitative Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 225-238.
    6. Richard G. Frank & David S. Salkever, 1991. "Pricing, Patent Loss and the Market For Pharmaceuticals," NBER Working Papers 3803, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Dranove, David, 1989. "Medicaid Drug Formulary Restrictions," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 143-162, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ferrara, Ida & Missios, Paul, 2012. "Pricing of drugs with heterogeneous health insurance coverage," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 440-456.
    2. Joan Costa-Font & Panos Kanavos & Joan Rovira, 2007. "Determinants of out-of-pocket pharmaceutical expenditure and access to drugs in Catalonia," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(5), pages 541-551.
    3. Joan-Ramon Borrell, 2007. "Pricing and patents of HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 505-518.
    4. Susana Narciso, 2005. "Retailing Policies for Generic Medicines," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 165-190, June.
    5. Rika Onishi Mortimer, 1998. "Demand for Prescription Drugs: The Effects of Managed Care Pharmacy Benefits," HEW 9802002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ernst R. Berndt & Iain M. Cockburn & Zvi Griliches, 1996. "Pharmaceutical Innovations and Market Dynamics: Tracking Effects on Price Indexes for Antidepressant Drugs," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1996 Micr), pages 133-199.
    7. Ferrara, Ida & Kong, Ying, 2008. "Can health insurance coverage explain the generic competition paradox?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 48-52, October.
    8. Stéphane Jacobzone, 1998. "Le rôle des prix dans la régulation du secteur pharmaceutique," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 312(1), pages 35-53.
    9. Ying Kong, 2009. "Competition between brand‐name and generics – analysis on pricing of brand‐name pharmaceutical," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 591-606, May.
    10. Stéphane Jacobzonne & Edouard Martin & Vincent Perrin & Julien Werle, 1997. "Une approche hedonique de la formation des prix des médicaments remboursables," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 129(3), pages 73-99.
    11. Paraponaris, A. & Verger, P. & Desquins, B. & Villani, P. & Bouvenot, G. & Rochaix, L. & Gourheux, J. C. & Moatti, J. P. AU -, 2004. "Delivering generics without regulatory incentives?: Empirical evidence from French general practitioners about willingness to prescribe international non-proprietary names," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 23-32, October.
    12. Joan-Ramon Borrell & Jayashree Watal, 2002. "Impact of Patents on Access to HIV/AIDS Drugs in Developing Countries," CID Working Papers 92, Center for International Development at Harvard University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laisney, François & Pohlmeier, Winfried & Staat, Matthias, 1991. "Estimation of labour supply functions using panel data: a survey," ZEW Discussion Papers 91-05, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Das, Marcel & van Soest, Arthur, 1999. "A panel data model for subjective information on household income growth," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 409-426, December.
    3. Jörg Breitung & Michael Lechner, 1996. "Estimation de modèles non linéaires sur données de panel par la méthode des moments généralisés," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 126(5), pages 191-203.
    4. Santiago Pereda-Fernández, 2021. "Copula-Based Random Effects Models for Clustered Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 575-588, March.
    5. Saïd Hanchane & Isabelle Recotillet, 2004. "On gender-specific socio-demographic determinants of the transition from school to work : a longitudinal analysis based on French data," Working Papers halshs-00010141, HAL.
    6. Fran�ois Laisney & Michael Lechner, 2003. "Almost Consistent Estimation of Panel Probit Models with "Small" Fixed Effects," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 1-28, February.
    7. Bertschek, Irene & Lechner, Michael, 1998. "Convenient estimators for the panel probit model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 329-371, September.
    8. Paul Contoyannis & Andrew M. Jones & Roberto Leon‐Gonzalez, 2004. "Using simulation‐based inference with panel data in health economics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 101-122, February.
    9. Manuel Arellano & Olympia Bover, 1990. "La econometría de datos de panel," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 14(1), pages 3-45, January.
    10. Heinz König & Michael Lechner, 1994. "Some Recent Developments in Microeconometrics - A Survey," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 130(III), pages 299-331, September.
    11. Lundin, Douglas, 2000. "Moral hazard in physician prescription behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 639-662, September.
    12. Christof Heldberger & Ulrich Rendtel & Johannes Schwarze, 1992. "Berufseinmündung von Jugendlichen als mehrstufiges Entscheidungsproblem," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 54, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Chernozhukov, Victor & Fernández-Val, Iván & Hoderlein, Stefan & Holzmann, Hajo & Newey, Whitney, 2015. "Nonparametric identification in panels using quantiles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 188(2), pages 378-392.
    14. Chen, Yi-Yi & Schmidt, Peter & Wang, Hung-Jen, 2014. "Consistent estimation of the fixed effects stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 181(2), pages 65-76.
    15. Joseph G. Altonji & Rosa L. Matzkin, 2001. "Panel Data Estimators for Nonseparable Models with Endogenous Regressors," NBER Technical Working Papers 0267, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Manuel Arellano & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2009. "Robust Priors in Nonlinear Panel Data Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 489-536, March.
    17. Shiu, Ji-Liang & Hu, Yingyao, 2013. "Identification and estimation of nonlinear dynamic panel data models with unobserved covariates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 175(2), pages 116-131.
    18. Lahiri, Kajal & Yang, Liu, 2013. "Forecasting Binary Outcomes," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1025-1106, Elsevier.
    19. Schupp, Fabian & Silbermann, Leonid, 2017. "The Role of Structural Funding for Stability in the German Banking Sector," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168166, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Hernández-Quevedo, Cristina & Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel, 2008. "Persistence in health limitations: A European comparative analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1472-1488, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.